Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band ~ A Fifth Of Beethoven 1976 Disco Purrfection Version

Walter Anthony Murphy Jr was born on December 19, 1952 in New York City. He proved to be a musical prodigy and by the age of four was taking music lessons from Rosa Rio who was an American concert pianist and composer of ad jingles. Murphy ended up starring in television ads for Hammond Organs. His real estate father was not pleased with young Walter’s choice to follow music as a career but he allowed him to enroll at the Manhattan School Of Music in 1970. He also joined an R&B band called WAM in and around New York. He studied classical piano and jazz and he submerged himself in the music, coming up for air in 1972 when he married Laurie Robertson. He followed Rosa Rio’s path and began composing incidental music for use in TV, radio and industrial films that saw release in 1974. By 1975 he had recorded a disco version of Jingle Bells he named “Disco Bells“ that was issued as a holiday single, but did not chart. It did point the way to his idea of marrying classical music